


More Than Your Shadow

by bluebeholder



Category: Bartimaeus - Jonathan Stroud
Genre: Domesticity, Lawful Evil Home Life, M/M, OTP: I Like You Hungry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-14
Updated: 2018-05-14
Packaged: 2019-05-07 00:52:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14659806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebeholder/pseuds/bluebeholder
Summary: Khaba and Ammet spend a pleasant day together. It's a little ominous at times, but when you're an evil magician and a demon, what else can be expected?





	More Than Your Shadow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shadowy_Dumbo_Octopus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowy_Dumbo_Octopus/gifts).



> Happy birthday, delicious friend! <3
> 
> I don’t know enough about these two to bring the fics in the tag over 10…but I figured I could at least get the number to 9. I hope you enjoy!

Powerful men always watch their backs.

This is a truth the world over, one which every king and general knows. At your back you have no defense. An enemy can strike you at any time. It is only the most powerful men who never fear what lurks behind them, and by this logic Khaba the Cruel is most powerful man in the world. Even the great Solomon himself must occasionally give a look over his shoulder.

No one has ever seen Khaba do this.

The rumors, the whispers, the insinuations—they swirl around him in force. Why, why, why would a man like Khaba be so fearless? Magicians are by and large a paranoid group of people. Who trusts a bound spirit, after all? And power always breeds envy, and envy always breeds treachery in the end. Yet this one man, this single man, is absolutely fearless.

Anyone who knows him understands that his peculiar shadow, the shadow that is always at his back no matter the position of the sun overhead, is far, far more than just a shadow.

“My dear Ammet,” Khaba calls, stepping into his laboratory.

“I’m here.”

Khaba’s shadow peels away from the floor and rises. The shadow, a rough and cloudy three-dimensional parody of a man with a pair of truly unsettling eyes, drifts around into Khaba’s view. On seeing the monstrous being, Khaba smiles.

“As always, I’m glad to see your face,” he says.

Ammet smiles, the shadow-face splitting into a mouth full of sharp teeth. “As always, you’d be the only one,” he says, punctuating the words with a hiss.

“Hush,” Khaba says tolerantly. He moves deeper into the laboratory, Ammet trailing just behind. “I have no task for you at present.”

“Oh?” Ammet’s eyes sparkle oddly, sliding and gleaming in the dim light. “Then why ask me to cease being your shadow, O Khaba?”

“I would like some company,” Khaba says.

Ammet inclines his suggestion of a head. “That,” he says, “I shall happily provide.”

The evening is pleasant. There is work to be done, particularly in the preparation of fulminating gold. Khaba plans to paint murals in a new library of artifacts. These murals will of course be trapped for defense of the treasures within. The gold that formulates the fine decorations, instead of being gold leaf, will be a paint of fulminating gold, which will explode at the slightest provocation.

“A simple spell will remind unwanted guests that no treasure is ever left truly unguarded,” Khaba muses, carefully pouring the false gold into a blue-glazed vessel. The lid is the head of Petbe, the watchful god of vengeance; this god will feature prominently in the murals as well. Khaba finds this appropriate, since in all likelihood the “unwanted guests” will be the original owners of the artifacts in the library.

“A clever ruse,” Ammet says. The shadow paces, watching Khaba’s practiced, careful movements with keen eyes. “The very art they came to steal becomes a weapon. How delightfully ironic.”

As any magician knows, the approval of some summoned spirit is something that should be taken with care. Yet Khaba is pleased to know that his Ammet approves. The marid is clever indeed, and if he thinks this will fool the unwary intruder, he is more than likely right.

When enough fulminating gold has been collected, the pair walks in the garden. This place, attended faithfully by a group of foliots, is among the most beautiful in the country. Rarely is it seen by outsiders: Khaba keeps it for his own pleasure alone.

A long, rectangular pond in the center is filled with exotic and colorful fishes. Rumors that Khaba keeps a crocodile in this pond to eat the unwary are slanderous. If Khaba wants to dispose of an unwanted visitor in this way he asks Ammet to make himself in the shape of a crocodile, and lets Ammet take care of things.

White and blue lotus fill the pond, and papyrus reeds sway along its edges. Trees march in rows beside the pond, well-tended. Sycomores, pink-flowered tamarisk, and willow predominate, but there are a few fig and pomegranate trees present. Beds of chrysanthemum and poppy stand well-tended beneath the trees, and on pillars along the pool jasmine drapes.

A small pergola stands at the far end of the garden, overlooking the pond, draped with grapevine for shade. Here, already waiting, are chairs at a table. To allow one’s servant, especially a mere spirit, to sit like this is inconceivable. But Ammet is not exactly a servant, is he?

Music, faint and lovely tambourines and drums and lutes, strikes up. Cones of scented fat light up as invisible foliots prepare the service. Khaba appreciates this kind of luxury, when shared. Yet there is only one with whom he wishes to share it.

“You will have a task for me tomorrow, I hope,” Ammet says. He looks now like a tall and slender youth, whose only unsettling feature is a pair of obsidian-black eyes. “This is all very well, but I am your servant, Khaba…”

“Let us pretend, for a moment, that you are not.”

Ammet’s brow arches sardonically. “Is Khaba the Cruel showing kindness?” he asks. His tone is far from biting, and Khaba smiles.

“No, only selfishness,” he says. “Pride and arrogance too. Let other magicians quail and tremble alone in their lairs, afraid even of their most closely bound demons. I will dine in the open air by the side of a demon I call my friend.”

“Well,” Ammet says. He shakes his head and leans back, and says not another word as food is brought to the table.

It is a small feast, but Khaba will have no less. A roast duck, fresh bread with coriander, cucumber and garlic greens with spices and lily-seed oil, cut melon, sweet beer, and a dessert of honey and tiger nut dough. It is fine food, if simple. Khaba finds it even more palatable than better food eaten at rich men’s tables. He is a solitary man by nature, and to be here with only Ammet for company pleases him.

“When will you begin to paint the murals in your new library?” Ammet asks.

“The designs are final, and the walls are being whitewashed in preparation,” Khaba says. “The artists will begin their work in a day or two, and when they are finished I will complete the arcane work.”

Ammet hums thoughtfully. “Will you require my services?”

“This is work for only two hands.” Khaba takes a sip of sweet beer. A thought occurs to him: “It’s unusual for a demon to ask for a task twice in one conversation. Do you wish to serve me, dear Ammet?”

“No!” Ammet looks horrified at the very thought and Khaba laughs. “Not to serve you, Khaba, I hate even your mastery. But to work beside you? That, I would enjoy.”

There is a jasmine-scented pause. The music has stilled—the disobedient foliots will need to be punished in the morning, to remind them of their place. But this is only a passing thought, for Khaba is much more concerned with the demon youth sitting beside him.

“Consider it settled,” Khaba says. He clasps Ammet’s hand for a moment, as if Ammet were what he seemed. Or no: Khaba would do the same if Ammet were a shadow with sharp teeth, or a crocodile-headed monstrosity, or a spirit of fire and air.

“Settled?” Ammet asks slyly.

Khaba smiles. “I shall send for a second set of tools,” he says. “We will complete the murals together, dear Ammet.”

And, Khaba adds in his own head, the murals will be ten times as glorious when he know that Ammet has helped him set traps for their enemies. Such work will be better crafted. It will be something Khaba will take pride in, to have done it with this beloved demon.

By Ammet’s smile, his thoughts are quite the same.


End file.
